"Apple Inc reported quarterly revenue that slightly missed Wall Street expectations as sales of its flagship iPhone came in below target, sending its shares down more than 4 percent. The world's largest technology company shipped 47.8 million iPhones, lower than the roughly 50 million that Wall Street analysts had predicted. Sales of the iPad came in at 22.9 million in the fiscal first quarter, about in line with forecasts." I'll leave the financials to the experts, but one thing that stood out to me: Apple sold 4.2 million Macs, almost a million below expectations. How much of a future does desktop computing have at Apple? Update: The NYT/Reuters changed the title during the night. Fixed it.

And where was Apple's stock before it released the ipod? How many "hot tips" from 1997 to 2001 are still making those gains today?

I wasn't making a case for Apple stock. If you bought it 10 years ago you were lucky - I completely concede that. I was simply illustrating that the hit the stock has taken over the last 6 months isn't as bad as many people imply if you were a long term investor.

But, I digress, let's use your Roulette anecdote. Betting the wheel is essentially the same thing as betting in wall street, albeit the rate of return over time is much shorter.

No its not. Because unlike roulette wall street isn't governed purely by chance. Roulette has a mathematically provable rate of return of -2.7% - there is not "betting strategy" that can change that - it is simple math. You can certainly get lucky, but the longer you play the closer to -2.7% you will get.

It is also different because historical performance has no statistical relation to future results. Again, a working roulette wheel might come up black 1000 times in a row - the odds of it coming up red on the next roll are still 50/50...

Markets don't work that way - they have history and history IS relevant, at least on timescales that most people are concerned with...

In roulette, you need a bankroll of probably a couple thousand, and a sound betting strategy, to guide you over the gains and losses over the course of a night. In stocks, guess what......it's the same thing.

Please describe a "sound betting strategy" in a game of pure chance... There is no such thing...

A long term investment strategy made up with conservative stocks to balance your betting on the "next big thing" (which 99% of the time, is just a pump and dump scheme by brokers) And you ride that out over time, changing your bets on this stock or that fund and pray you get the ever elusive 8% return (that the investment firms love to dangle in front of you) or at the very least match the performance of the S&P.
So, trust me.....don't believe the hype. Wall Street is nothing more than legalized gambling.

Changing your bets and betting on the next big thing is how you lose money on wall street... The people that do that, those are the people funding the smart investors rather common 8% return (actually more like 10%).

Its not rocket science. Invest in the S&P 500 or a decent fund with a good history... Unlike roulette, math is on your side as long as your patient. Yes, you can stil lose your ass - but the odds are actually in your favor...